Experts predicted a coronavirus outbreak a few years ago. Now it’s playing in front of us

2017, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security Expert Team Published the scenario As part of the training they believed they could happen in the not too distant future.

SPARS pandemic scenario

The year is 2025.

Several American travelers returning from Asia have died of an unknown flu-like illness. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that the victim had been infected with the new coronavirus SPARS-CoV.

Nothing is known about this new coronavirus. There is no quick diagnostic test. There is no known cure. And there is no vaccine.

It is not long before the outbreak of SPARS hits a global pandemic.

The CDC has discovered that SPARS is transmitted via respiratory droplets and recommends that everyone use hand hygiene and frequent surface disinfection. Experts know that SPARS has a long incubation period of 7 to 10 days, and an asymptomatic carrier can spread the infection. Women who are pregnant or have underlying disorders such as asthma and emphysema are at increased risk of complications and death. WHO has begun to recommend social distance and isolation of suspicious cases.

Existing antivirals are expected to help treat SPARS, but there are no randomized controlled trials. The US Food and Drug Administration has issued an emergency license for this drug to treat SPARS patients. Soon, public demand for the drug will increase and millions of doses will be dispensed from the Strategic National Reserve. But it will soon be clear that the drug can It causes serious side effects.

Things get political. Republicans express their support for the drug, while Democrats express doubt. America is more connected than ever, but more divided. On social media, rumors and misinformation about viruses and potential cures are widespread. The economy will suffer as the pandemic progresses. There is a promise that within a year, potential vaccines will begin expedited review and can be administered tens of millions of times within a few months. But of the hundreds of millions of people in the United States, who gets the vaccine first?

Communication in the age of Covid-19

Reading the SPARS pandemic scenario is similar to reading the Covid-19 pandemic description. But the scenario was not an attempt to predict the future. Rather, it was intended to explain the wide range of serious challenges that public health communicators might face. By addressing these challenges as part of the training exercises, it was hoped that federal, state and local agencies would be prepared to address similar scenarios in the future.

The future is now. However, many of the public health pitfalls that were meant to serve as educational tools seem to have unfolded in front of us.

During this pandemic Trump administration Occasionally, issuing conflicting public health advisories and messaging can undermine our unique commitment to clear and transparent communication. For example, tug of war on the use of face masks, hype surrounding hydroxychloroquine, and, more recently, unclear guidance on testing exposed people coronavirus, but without symptoms.

And the subsequent confusion has consequences.

Take Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones as an example. Jones has decided not to enforce the Ohio Governor Mike Dewein’s statewide mask delegation issued on July 23 — a potentially life-saving decision.

“Every week, they’re changing how they can catch this and how they can’t. First wear a mask, then not a mask. Then some kind of mask. And how it works Spread on the surface, and then [can] I’m in the air for 10 days. People are confused. In late July, Jones spoke to CNN’s Briana Keeler.

Community leaders like Jones ignore life-saving recommendations when new medical insights into this pandemic are not clearly communicated.

actually, Vote from June Despite increasing medical research showing that masks can save thousands of lives, it turned out that only about half of Americans wore masks each time they left home.

From the wearing of masks to the degree of subclinical spread and the danger of airborne viral particles, communication of new scientific insights Confusing rather than clarity..

Public Health Dr. Meredith Reformer, risk communication specialist in Seattle and King County, says it’s natural for public health recommendations to change over time as scientific understanding grows. However, if new information is not communicated clearly, it may undermine public trust.

“You are dealing with something that is unknown and information is changing rapidly,” Li-Vollmer told CNN. “Every expert must learn when it happens,” she added, saying they need to say that.

“It was really important to let people know we are still learning.”

Need for investment in preparation

Dr. Monica Schottspana, head of the SPARS Pandemic Scenario Projects team at Johns Hopkins Health Security Center lamented that the role of public health communication is taken for granted. “Communications in public health have usually been seen as an adjunct to “real” work to contain the outbreak,” she told CNN.

“Therefore, people responsible for public communication and community involvement, as well as the important role they play in reducing the adverse consequences of disease outbreaks, including sickness and death, as well as stigma, trauma, and public distrust. , And I often struggle to be recognized for social fragmentation,” she said.

President Trump frequently points out that he does not know that there are provisioning resources. He is called the Covid-19 PandemicSomething nobody has ever thought could happen in this country.. “

The expert who created the SPARS pandemic scenario may be seeking another opinion.

“There are good resources for preparation,” Schoch-Spana told CNN. “Weakening the US Government’s response to Covid-19 has resulted in a lack of supreme critical leadership, the dismissal of existing preparedness and response expertise within key agencies, and the consequences of science and long-term public health. Alternative politics and short-term thinking.”

Trump administration rejected Dismantled One of these key agencies — the National Security Council, the World Health Security Administration and the Biological Defense Agency. Established after the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the unit protects against the epidemic and pandemic in preparation for the next outbreak.

The federal government’s prioritization of public health preparedness and response makes it increasingly difficult for public health communicators to perform critical tasks. Fewer federal funds are jeopardizing access to key reserve resources such as the SPARS pandemic scenario.

In 2008, Li-Vollmer and his team received funding to participate in a week-long pandemic flu training campaign. They got the important practice of building an open-air hospital, setting up a media briefing, and responding as if a pandemic were really happening.

They also laid the foundation for an important relationship with other medical departments that could be trusted when the actual pandemic flu occurred just one year later.

“When the H1N1 pandemic occurred—it happened a year after doing that one week of workout—and it really felt like: “We actually experienced that step. I felt very ready because I did, but such an ability to do such a big exercise — that fund was gone years ago.”

Li-Vollmer said her team of emergency experts has been cut by more than half since the H1N1 epidemic, and federal funding shortages have impaired her access to critical training resources in the county health department. I will.

She is grateful that she had the opportunity to work on the SPARS pandemic scenario just a year before the current pandemic began. Her County Department of Health experienced the first Covid-19 case in the United States-and the first Covid-19 death.

Looking back on what he learned in the course of this pandemic, Li-Vollmer only asked for more federal funding to give his team more access to training exercises like the SPARS pandemic scenario. Said that.

There are countless lessons to learn from the real-world Covid-19 pandemic. In it The importance of the rest of visirangt Even though the pandemic threat seems a distant, hypothetical possibility, even about public health readiness.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a recent discussion with the TB Alliance: Sustainable efforts to prepare for a pandemic We are not currently in the middle of an outbreak.

“Focus said that emerging infectious diseases will continue to occur even after all of us are gone.” So let’s prepare them.”